In this morning’s Washington Post Prince Turki al-Faisal of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, former director general of their intelligence service and also their former ambassador to the United States offers President Obama some advice on how to proceed in Afghanistan with which I find I am in almost complete agreement. His advice consists of six action items:

• There is no viable opposition to Karzai in Afghanistan. He is a fact. Deal with it.
• Concentrate on fighting foreign terrorists and build bridges with the Taliban.
• Fix the Durand Line.
• Meet with the security and intelligence departments of Pakistan, Afghanistan, Russia, China, and the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia to devise ways of eliminating Al Qaeda’s leadership. Nobody has more on the line than the Saudis in that battle and Russia and China are at greater risk than we are from them.
• Exert influence to induce Pakistan and India to resolve the matter of Kashmir.
• Use measures similar to those used in Turkey (in which the U. S. bought the entire crop directly from farmers, something I’ve been suggesting, and allowed them to plant alternative crops).

Read the whole thing. I’m hoping that John Burgess will weigh in on this. John, are you there?

It’s been years since I’ve quoted Ted Rall here. He hasn’t appeared in a post title since September 2005’s “Rall: Charities are for Suckers.”  The man’s eminently quotable, if in a train wreck sort of way, but constantly pointing out that some commentators are crazy attention whores really doesn’t advance the debate much.

But you’ve got to hand it to Rall:  He’s a consistent loon.

We expected broken promises. But the gap between the soaring expectations that accompanied Barack Obama’s inauguration and his wretched performance is the broadest such chasm in recent historical memory. This guy makes Bill Clinton look like a paragon of integrity and follow-through.

From health care to torture to the economy to war, Obama has reneged on pledges real and implied. So timid and so owned is he that he trembles in fear of offending, of all things, the government of Turkey. Obama has officially reneged on his campaign promise to acknowledge the Armenian genocide. When a president doesn’t have the nerve to annoy the Turks, why does he bother to show up for work in the morning?

Obama is useless. Worse than that, he’s dangerous. Which is why, if he has any patriotism left after the thousands of meetings he has sat through with corporate contributors, blood-sucking lobbyists and corrupt politicians, he ought to step down now — before he drags us further into the abyss.

Take that, Rush Limbaugh!  In your face, G. Gordon Liddy!

For what it’s worth, while I didn’t vote for Obama and will quite probably* vote for his Republican opponent in 2012, I neither think Obama has done anything to merit resignation nor think he’s sold out to lobbyists any more than the next guy.  Being president is much harder than being a pundit, in that actions have consequences.

For example, I simultaneously believe the Turks committed genocide nearly a century ago and that the United States Government should refrain from rubbing their noses in it.  Whatever satisfaction an individual might get from Speaking Truth to (Middling) Power, Turkey is an important ally at the nexus of several of our most pressing foreign policy hotspots.  Alienating them over something that happened generations ago is foolish.  The President Obama, faced with that reality, is more cautious than was Candidate Obama, is a feature, not a bug.

___________

*There are a handful of plausible nominees that could put me off the reservation.

Japan, Austria, Turkey, Uganda, and Mexico will replace Indonesia, Belgium, Italy, South Africa, and Panama in the two year terms for nonpermanent seats on the United Nations Security Council beginning on January 1 of next year:

UNITED NATIONS — Japan easily drubbed Iran in the election on Friday for a two-year seat on the Security Council, while the recent financial meltdown in Iceland appeared to have contributed to its loss against Austria and Turkey in the heavily fought contest for two seats reserved for a group of mostly European countries.

Some Council members portrayed the lopsided vote against Iran, with Japan garnering 158 votes to Iran’s 32, as an international referendum critical of the country’s confrontational stance over its nuclear program.

Having Iran hold a seat on the Security Council would have been unseemly to say the least given that its nuclear development program is likely to be one of the topics to be considered by the UNSC during this term.

Besides, Japan’s is the largest economy of any country not holding a permanent seat on the UNSC and it’s one of the UN’s most significant financial supporters. Still, it’s a setback for Iran:

“The reality is that nobody expected Iran to prevail against Japan even if there was no nuclear problem,” said Colin Keating, a former New Zealand ambassador and now the head of Security Council Report, a nonprofit organization that tracks the body. He suggested that 32 votes meant that Iran does have a few committed friends.

Yesterday I noted the ruling regarding the banning (or not, as the case was) of the ruling AK party in Turkey.

Here’s a follow-up which focuses mostly on the funding cut imposed by the court.

Via the BBC: Turkey’s ruling party escapes ban

Turkey’s Constitutional Court has decided not to ban the ruling AK Party, accused of undermining the country’s secular system.

But the judges did cut half the AKP’s treasury funding for this year.

That’ll show ‘em! (I honestly have no idea which funds or what they are used for–and the story does not elaborate.)

In all seriousness, this is a healthy result for Turkish democratic development as well as a positive move for all who would like to see a functional example of democracy in an Islamic society.

Still, the overall situation is not at healthy as one might like:

At least seven of the 11 court judges would need to vote in favour for the party to be banned. But six judges wanted a ban and five did not want to do so.

Being one vote shy of being banned is escaping by the thinnest of margins.

Bernard Finel argues that we have done a poor job of formalizing rules to deal with the fight against international terrorists.

Few, even today, question the legitimacy of the U.S. campaign to remove the Taliban. But has this case set a broader precedent? And if so, what are the parameters of this precedent. Does any country unilaterally have the right to engage in regime change if they are struck by a terrorist attack launched from another country? Must the victim demonstrate that the host country is actually complicit in the attack in some way? Must the victim seek out some sort of collective legitimization before resorting to military action? Can an unwilling host country avoid retaliation if it can demonstrate that it is trying to eject the terrorist organization.

This is not an academic exercise. Rather, these issues reflect fundamental challenges in current U.S. counter-terrorism policy. The United States has relied on targeting killings of AQ operatives in numerous countries. Is this policy legitimate? Could the Chinese, for instance, legitimately target Tibetan activists in the United States by claiming that those activists were inciting violence in China? What are American rights vis-à-vis AQ bases in Pakistan. Does the Afghan precedent suggest that the United States could legally engage in regime change in Pakistan in retaliation? If not, why not?

As a practical matter, the answer to each of these questions is that countries can do whatever they want so long as they can get away with it. The United States and China will have more latitude in these matters than, say, Turkey.

But it’s more complicated than that. As Finel’s colleague, Jim Ludes, points out
there is value in establishing rules ahead of time and then following them.

If you believe the conflict will endure for decades, it makes sense that you would seek to institutionalize, both domestically and internationally, the legal authorities and procedures for prosecuting this war. That was the genius of the 1947 National Security Act, the creation of NATO, the United Nations, the World Bank, and the complex of international institutions and laws that helped us win the Cold War in 1989.

[...]

We are, at our core, a nation of laws. If our laws aren’t adequate to the challenges at hand, then they need to be revised, but they can not–and must not–be ignored. Nor can we afford to let terrorists go free. Our concern over due-process is not simply about the rights of detainees, it is about preserving our identity, defending our way of life, and defeating the terrorists.

Indeed. While there’s some short-term advantage to the ad hoc, make-it-up-as-you-go approach that the Bush Administration has taken, it’s damaging in the longer term. Not only does it undermine our moral authority in trying to hold others to the rule of law but it’s problematic on the domestic front, too. Those who have been perfectly happy to trust Bush to do what he felt best to protect us will likely not be so sanguine if he’s succeeded by a President Obama.

Will Wilkinson reports that he didn’t buy as many things as he would have liked on a recent trip to Turkey because the cultural proclivity to haggling left him cold. He suspects this experience is generalizable.

[P]robably hundreds of my dollars stayed in my pocket because I didn’t have good information about the quality of products and I knew the retailer is better at bargaining over the surplus than I am, so… there was no transaction and no surplus. Sure, there is a lot of successful gouging going on, but add up millions of instances of “I know you’re going to screw me,” and I suspect that the average retailer is doing worse rather than better under the haggling system. And how about the average native consumer? In competitive posted-price markets, the system basically pre-haggles the price down to the point where the consumer gets most of the surplus.

Megan McArdle thinks Will is looking at it wrong, since all that matters is what something’s worth to you.

It is only right and natural that we should want to maximize our consumer surplus. But as long as you are getting consumer surplus, you should make the deal. Besides, “one price” is no guarantee that you are getting a good deal. It saves time and lets you free ride on the judgment of others, but Consumer Reports, and America’s living rooms, are full of evidence that their judgment isn’t always particularly good.

Responding in the comments, though, Will explains that “I prefer not to pay much more than the lowest price on the market (taking into account search costs, etc), because that leaves me with less with which to buy other things.” Moreover, when buying unusual items in places where one is not familiar with the quality of goods or the reliability of merchants, “there is an extreme information asymmetry” which makes it hard “magically intuit your reservation price.”

Jason Kuznicki and Bruce McQuain chime in with the observation that Will is ignoring the recreational aspect, claiming that haggling is great fun. The latter recounts several anecdotes about his wife spending hours going back and forth before triumphing against an overmatched retailer.

I’m very much with Will on this one. Haggling is inefficient, irritating, and likely results in a net loss for all parties.

There are very few times when one time we’re expected to haggle in America. The most obvious and common is when purchasing a new car — and one company, Saturn, has built a business around removing that from the equation. But, there, the comparisons are transparent, especially in the Internet Age where consumers can get precise figures on what dealers pay for each item of optional equipment.

Similarly, unless it’s a seller’s market, home prices are considered negotiable. Again, though, it’s relatively easy to compare values in a given locality through the advent of multiple listing services. The costs here are enormous, as a parasite class, the “Realtor,” takes a hefty cut of the value for providing that transparency.

There’s also some haggling that goes on in the gray economies of flea markets, yard sales, and so forth but those are easily avoidable transactions.

I’m especially amused at Bruce’s tale. Basically, he has to stand around for hours on end while his wife dickers over the price of various goods which, if they’d been correctly priced to begin with, he’d have been able to avoid. I don’t know enough about the situation to assess whether this would have translated into more time in front of the big screen watching sporting events or more time accompanying his wife shopping, which of course needs to be factored into the equation. Still, unless one derives an enormous amount of pleasure from the process, it strikes me as quite a waste of time.

During a major foreign policy address yesterday, John McCain talked about his plan to create a League of Democracies. Charles Krauthammer sees a plot to do away with the United Nations:

Well, I like the idea of the league of democracies, and only in part because I and others had proposed it about six years ago. What I like about it, it’s got a hidden agenda. It looks as if it’s all about listening and joining with allies, all the kind of stuff you’d hear a John Kerry say, except that the idea here, which McCain can’t say, but I can, is to essentially kill the U.N.

See the video here.

Ben Armbruster thinks Krauthammer is on to something

After all, he backed anti-U.N. crusader John Bolton’s nomination as the organization’s U.S. ambassador and secretly pushed his confirmation. Bolton famously said “there is no such thing as the United Nations” and if the U.N. building in New York “lost ten stories, it wouldn’t make a bit of difference.”

Well, here’s what McCain actually said on the subject:

The United States must lead in the 21st century, just as in Truman’s day. But leadership today means something different than it did in the years after World War II, when Europe and the other democracies were still recovering from the devastation of war and the United States was the only democratic superpower. Today we are not alone. There is the powerful collective voice of the European Union, and there are the great nations of India and Japan, Australia and Brazil, South Korea and South Africa, Turkey and Israel, to name just a few of the leading democracies. There are also the increasingly powerful nations of China and Russia that wield great influence in the international system.

In such a world, where power of all kinds is more widely and evenly distributed, the United States cannot lead by virtue of its power alone. We must be strong politically, economically, and militarily. But we must also lead by attracting others to our cause, by demonstrating once again the virtues of freedom and democracy, by defending the rules of international civilized society and by creating the new international institutions necessary to advance the peace and freedoms we cherish. Perhaps above all, leadership in today’s world means accepting and fulfilling our responsibilities as a great nation.

One of those responsibilities is to be a good and reliable ally to our fellow democracies. We cannot build an enduring peace based on freedom by ourselves, and we do not want to. We have to strengthen our global alliances as the core of a new global compact — a League of Democracies — that can harness the vast influence of the more than one hundred democratic nations around the world to advance our values and defend our shared interests.

At the heart of this new compact must be mutual respect and trust. Recall the words of our founders in the Declaration of Independence, that we pay “decent respect to the opinions of mankind.” Our great power does not mean we can do whatever we want whenever we want, nor should we assume we have all the wisdom and knowledge necessary to succeed. We need to listen to the views and respect the collective will of our democratic allies. When we believe international action is necessary, whether military, economic, or diplomatic, we will try to persuade our friends that we are right. But we, in return, must be willing to be persuaded by them.

This is a very broad internationalism, encompassing not just “Old Europe” but emerging democracies as well.

Further, McCain has been talking about a “League of Democracies” for months. When he brought up the idea in a blogger conference call last October, I was able to ask him directly:

I was able to get in the first question and followed up on this idea, asking whether he was talking about a “NATO Plus” organization or something else. McCain replied that he envisioned something more along the lines of ASEAN or the G-8, a somewhat formal IGO that would have regular meetings but no standing forces. In follow-up, I inquired whether he thought this meant that NATO and the UN Security Council, as presently constituted, were failures. He said that, no, those organizations have their purposes but that NATO was a military alliance whereas his League of Democracies would focus mostly on non-military solutions such as economic sanctions, trade, diplomacy, and public relations.

Now, Krauthammer is right that using an IGO other than the UN to accomplish purposes that the UN was chartered to do weakens the UN by making it less vital. But the fact that we have created dozens of multi-lateral organizations over the years to get around the UN’s inability to function would seem to demonstrate that the UN doesn’t need much help in being weak.

Bolton was fundamentally right when he said, “There is no such thing as the United Nations. There is only the international community, which can only be led by the only remaining superpower, which is the United States.” (Yes, context helps.) The UN isn’t an organism which can be killed but rather a building and a mechanism through which sovereign states attempt to transact business. Attempting to get that business done through a smaller coalition of more like-minded states only makes sense, and it’s a far sight better than either going it alone or waiting on the UN to achieve consensus.

via Memeorandum

Photo Credit: Traveling Mego Hulk

The Unbearable Lightness of Being Edition OTB Caption Contest^TM is now over.

REUTERS/Jonathan Ernst

THE WINNERS

First: radio free fred – The Definition For Helium and Ron Paul are Similar (A Non Reactive, Inert, Noble Gas.)

Second: floyd – No wonder he talks funny…. It’s the Helium!

Third: Anderson – Ron Paul denied knowing whose hot air was bearing his name.

HONORABLE MENTION

charles austin – Float like a butterfly, sting like a …, um …, a stingy thing.

Bithead – “Okay, so hydrogen was a bad choice– ” — Hindenberg…. “Hey, I’ve got an idea… let’s run our cars on Hydrogen!!!” -Ron Paul

Bithead – Oh, my God… they’re TURKEYS!!!!! -Les Nessman

Bithead – Best I can figure, we’re either over Mogadishu, or Detroit.

Hodink – Never trust a lofty politician with two first names.

yetanotherjohn – The harbinger of the revolution has a very wide turning radius.

Michael – “Oh the humanity!”

RODNEY’S BOTTOM OF THE BARREL

view to a Shill

♬
Love Blimp soon will be making another run
The Love Blimp promises something for everyone
Set a course for adventure,
Your mind on a new romance.
♬

Toldya turkeys could fly.

The Thursday Contest is all hopped up with not place to go.

Joe Carter, in an interesting reflection on his 30 days working for the Huckabee campaign, makes this observation:

The Ron Paul Phenomenon is Not About Ron Paul — It will take a more astute political mind than I possess to comprehend this Ron Paul phenomenon. All I know is that it has less to do with the candidate than about people’s desire for something different. When Rod Dreher, Andrew Sullivan, Vox Day, John Derbyshire, and the 9/11 Truthers all agree on a candidate its safe to say that they aren’t all seeing the same thing.

On last night’s episode of OTB Radio, I likened it to the Ross Perot phenomenon in 1992, which was also more about “Something Different” than about Perot. There, though, there was also a minor cult of personality going on; Paul can’t be accused of that.

The bottom line is that there are a huge number of people simply fed up with the major parties, a trend that has been visible at least since George Wallace’s 1968 campaign when he famously asserted that “there’s not a dime’s worth of difference” between the national Democrat and Republican parties. While that feeling is, in my view, exaggerated it’s certainly true that there’s far less choice in American politics than in most Western democracies. Both of our parties would fit comfortably within the British Conservative Party, for example.

Both Micah Sifry and Matt Yglesias point to this political polarization network visualization which shows that books by Pat Buchanan and Lou Dobbs occupy the center in American political thought, not the extreme fringe that they do in terms of elected officials.

Matt gets it just right:

[I]nsofar as there’s some kind of excluded middle in our current political situation it’s not the brand of Bloomberg-style “centrism” that the bemoaners of partisanship tend to favor. Instead, it’s something akin to Dobbs-style populist nationalism. It’s not a point of view I favor, but unlike Bloombergism it is a point of view that has a lot of support and only a little representation.

A lot of those folks are gravitating to Paul, not because he’s necessarily one of them, but because he’s as close as they’re likely to find in a respectable candidate. Given that the presidential nominating processes of both parties favor the activist Right/Left base, though, there’s virtually no chance that a Paul (or Buchanan) would get the nomination.

The United States is actively supporting Turkey in its attacks against PKK terrorists, although remaining vague on the precise nature of the intelligence provided.

The United States has given Turkey intelligence to track Kurdish fighters hiding in Iraq, a Pentagon spokesman said on Monday, but he would not say whether Washington gave Ankara precise targets used in weekend raids.

Defense Department spokesman Bryan Whitman also would not say whether the United States gave Turkey prior approval to use Iraqi air space to conduct the strikes. “The United States continues to assist with information to the Turkish government that will help them deal with the insurgent situation that they have up there,” Whitman said.

The Pentagon had said it was helping Turkey gain the “actionable” intelligence needed for a strike against Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) militants. Actionable intelligence refers to information that can be acted upon, such as data that pinpoints the location of a target for a military strike.

Asked specifically whether the United States gave Turkey targets used in weekend raids, Whitman said he would not “get into details like that.”

Which is press secretary-speak for “Yes.”

Given the sensitivity of the situation, the United States government naturally wants to be a bit cagey here. At the same time, we have a NATO ally being attacked by terrorists who are based in territory occupied by American soldiers. It would be inconceivable for 1) Turkey to risk killing American personnel by bombing without prior coordination or 2) for us not to give them the best intel at our disposal so as to minimize collateral damage.

The Watcher’s Council has announced its picks for the most outstanding posts of the preceding week. The winning Council post was Right Wing Nut House’s post, “Buchanan’s New Book: “Prepare Ye for the End””. Second place honors went to my own post, “The Visual Imagery Society”. I voted for Rick’s post so I’m happy with this result and grateful to the Council for its support.

The winning non-Council post was Wolf Howling’s “Have Our Copperheads Found Their McClellan in Retired LTG General Sanchez?”. Second place honors went to Michelle Malkin’s “Letter from the Front: Turkey Day in Tikrit”.

The complete results are here.

Applications are still being accepted for the Council spot that has become available. If you’ve got a blog and you’re interested in expanding your readership and having a greater impact, you might consider applying. The rules are here.

While many war supporters have been pointing to security improvements in Iraq as evidence that the Surge is working for weeks, the meme got a significant boost yesterday from an unlikely source: Congressman Jack Murtha.

U.S. Rep. John Murtha today said he saw signs of military progress during a brief trip to Iraq last week, but he warned that Iraqis need to play a larger role in providing their own security and the Bush administration still must develop an exit strategy.

“I think the ’surge’ is working,” the Democrat said in a videoconference from his Johnstown office, describing the president’s decision to commit more than 20,000 additional combat troops this year. But the Iraqis “have got to take care of themselves.”

Violence has dropped significantly in recent months, but Mr. Murtha said he was most encouraged by changes in the once-volatile Anbar province, where locals have started working closely with U.S. forces to isolate insurgents linked to Al Qaeda. He said Iraqis need to duplicate that success at the national level, but the central government in Baghdad is “dysfunctional.”

Mr. Murtha’s four day-trip took him to a Thanksgiving dinner with troops in Kuwait last Thursday, and he then made stops in Iraq, Turkey and Belgium.

Murtha’s comments are getting plenty of attention around the blogosphere.

Bruce Kesler wins the clever headline award for, “Murtha Eats Turkey And His Hat.”

Jules Crittenden advises those hoping for Murtha to get on board the Stay the Course bandwagon, “Don’t hold your breath. Murtha won’t give up on giving up.”

AllahPundit proclaims, “Hell freezes over” and provides a video clip of Murtha from July “sneering” about the obstacles ahead.

The Politico’s Josh Kraushaar cites the same clip.

I just don’t see it. I’ve chided Murtha for over-the-top rhetoric and flawed strategic vision since he first came on the radar screen as the face of the Withdraw Now movement. But his remarks in July were quite tempered and, indeed, essentially correct. Moreover, he’s not saying anything much different now: Despite remarkable and welcome success on the security front, the performance of the Maliki government has been dismal.

BCB’s “Gaius” dismisses the idea that Murtha is just acknowledging shifting facts on the ground: “The polls changed and so did the weather vane that is John Murtha.” Moe Lane agrees: “What’s changed? Oh, right, we’re coming up on an even-numbered year.”

The Surge has in a sense worked despite itself, with local warlords stepping in and providing political leadership in key hot spots. Despite the nonsensical idea that a retired Marine colonel and veteran of two wars wants to lose this war, Murtha is obviously pleased with the progress being made. Even so, he’s still cautioning — as are most sensible proponents of the war, such as John McCain — that there are many miles yet to go on the road to victory.

Moreover, Murtha is giving a candid assessment knowing full well that this will be the reaction. From a sheer political standpoint, failure in Iraq is good for him and his party. Despite that, Murtha is acknowledging progress.

Ed Morrissey observes of the success Murtha is now observing, “No thanks to Murtha and his defeatist ilk in Congress, of course. If the Congressional Democrats had had their way in January, we would have abandoned the Iraqis to the terrorists and left behind a failed state and destroyed credibility.”

That judgment is harsh and somewhat unfair. Honorable people disagreed about whether we could achieve our objectives in Iraq; indeed, most experts thought — and still think — it’s a longshot. It’s hardly unreasonable for those who think losing is inevitable to think we should stop getting American soldiers killed in a lost cause. Indeed, the alternative view would be despicable.

It’s almost certainly true, though, that the security situation in Iraq would be worse rather than better had we withdrawn our forces in November 2005, as Murtha urged. That’s why I’ve reluctantly urged continuing the slog. The consequences of failure here are severe. But let’s not act as if a significant number of those who disagree want failure. Or that recent progress is anything like a guarantee of eventual success.

Photo credit: Larry Downing/Reuters

Former Marine Commandant and Supreme Allied Commander James Jones will be appointed as Special Envoy for Middle East Security, AP reports.

A former NATO commander is expected to accept a role as adviser to Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice on security issues related to negotiations between Israel and the Palestinians on a peace accord, officials close to the discussions said Wednesday.

Rice was scheduled to announce later in the day that the advisory post with the title “special envoy for Middle East security” would be taken by retired Marine Corps Gen. James Jones, who was the alliance’s top commander in Europe.

State Department spokesman Sean McCormack said the job involves monitoring the development of Palestinian security services. One focus would be how those forces interact with neighboring security services, including Israeli authorities. McCormack would not say who Rice had tapped for the position.

“There is in her mind a need for someone to take a look internally at not only the efforts of the Palestinians to build up their security forces, but how those efforts relate to the Israeli government and Israeli security efforts and how those efforts also relate through the region,” he said.

Since Jones is Chairman of the Atlantic Council of the United States, and thus my boss’ boss, I’m not in a position to comment with objectivity. It would be hard to find someone with more experience, however. From his ACUS bio:

After graduating from the Georgetown University School of Foreign Service, he was commissioned in 1967 and distinguished himself in a variety of assignments. Most notably, he served as an operational commander at every level including a combat tour as platoon and company commander in Vietnam; Company Command in Okinawa, Japan; battalion command in Camp Pendleton, California; and Commanding Officer of the 24th Marine Expeditionary Unit, where he served as a Colonel and led humanitarian operations in Northern Iraq and Turkey on Operation Provide Comfort. After rising to the rank of General Officer in April 1992, his career path continued its operational focus with service as the Chief of Staff, Joint Task Force Provide Promise for operations in Bosnia-Herzegovina and Macedonia followed by a tour as Commanding General of Second Marine Division, Marine Forces Atlantic.

Between command tours, he gained unique insight and perspective serving in a number of distinctive billets throughout the National Capital Region including Marine Corps Liaison Officer to the United States Senate, Senior Aide and Military Secretary to the Commandant of the Marine Corps, Director of the Expeditionary Warfare Division for the Chief of Naval Operations, and Deputy Chief of Staff for Marine Corps’ Plans, Policies and Operations. After serving as the Senior Military Assistant to the Secretary of Defense from 1997 to 1999, his final two assignments called on him to return to command, at the strategic level, when he served successively as 32nd Commandant of the Marine Corps, followed by a tour of duty as Supreme Allied Commander, Europe, and Commander, U.S. European Command.

His task is, to say the least, rather daunting.

UPDATE: More from Steven Myers and Helene Cooper, who have a slightly different take on Jones’ role:

A day after the Israelis and Palestinians agreed to negotiate a peace treaty, the Bush administration appointed a former NATO commander to act as a liaison between the two sides, an administration official said today. James L. Jones, a retired Marine Corps general, will report to Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice as part of what the administration hopes will be an intensified negotiating track following the international meeting at the United States Naval Academy in Annapolis, Md.

UPDATE: For more background on Jones, see Neil King’s April WSJ profile, “The Courting of General Jones – Candidates From Both Parties Woo Policy-Savvy Ex-Marine.”

Stories via OTB News [AP/USAT, NYT]. Photo credit: Atlantic Council.

I’ve written a review of The Siege of Mecca: The Forgotten Uprising in Islam’s Holiest Shrine and the Birth of Al Qaeda, a riveting retelling of the events of November, 1979, when a group of around 500 Islamic extremists (including at least two American Black Muslims) seized the Grand Mosque at Mecca. The author concludes that this action, taken along with other events of that momentous month, led to the Islamic extremism we’re experiencing today. He notes how the Saudi Ulema, in return for their continued support of the state, extorted a high price: the rolling back of many of the modest reforms and modernizations the government had achieved.

I think the book misses the target on some analysis, particularly in drawing conclusions from contested ‘facts’, and he simply gets some of the history wrong. But the book is very much on target when it comes to the siege in Mecca and the way it was resolved. It also goes into the role of French commandos, the utter failure of Jimmy Carter’s White House, and the way rumor could spread internationally, even in pre-Internet days. Definitely worth reading.

You can read my full review here.